Waverley: or, 'Tis sixty years since

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INTRODUCTION—(1829) WAVERLEY or 'TIS SIXTY YEARS SINCE

NOTES GLOSSARY

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He was in his sixteenth year, when his habits of abstraction and love of solitude became so much marked, as to excite Sir Everard's affectionate apprehension. He tried to counterbalance these propensities, by engaging his nephew in field sports, which had been the chief pleasure of his own youthful days. But although Edward eagerly carried the gun for one season, yet when practice had given him some dexterity, the pastime ceased to afford him amusement.

In the succeeding spring, the perusal of old Isaac Walton's fascinating volume determined Edward to become 'a brother of the angle.' But of all diversions which ingenuity ever devised for the relief of idleness, fishing is the worst qualified to amuse a man who is at once indolent and impatient; and our hero's rod was speedily flung aside. Society and example, which, more than any other motives, master and sway the natural bent of our passions, might have had their usual effect upon the youthful visionary: but the neighbourhood was thinly inhabited, and the homebred young squires whom it afforded, were not of a class fit to form Edward's usual companions, far less to excite him to emulation in the practice of those pastimes which composed the serious business of their lives.

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